Back in the eighties
she bought herself a place
up Fickle Hill
the woman I had left
my marriage for
with trowel and spade
she made a nursery
devoted to the heirloom roses
that she prized
roses with exquisite scents
and cuplike forms so different
from their gaudy modern cousins
and whose names
I fell in love with
Blanche de Belgique
Albéric Barbier
Königin von Dänmark, Lady Penzance
Düchesse d'Auerstädt, La Belle Sultane

I've grown some of these beauties
worked to nurture them
with moderate success
here in the backyard garden
my dear wife has created

The nursery still thrives
and I am grateful
for the world of roses
I'd never have known
the name proved fateful
fickle lovers both of us
after so long surely we're past it
though it seems
it's easier to forgive
someone who's wronged you
than to forgive
someone whom you have wronged